Bus Stoppage Said to Target Rikers Inmate

When an apparent job action by city correction workers stranded dozens of city correction buses at Rikers Island this week, hundreds of inmates failed to make their scheduled court appearances — including one man of particular interest.

The man, Dapree Peterson, was scheduled to testify on Monday at a trial in State Supreme Court in the Bronx against two correction officers who are accused of beating him and trying to cover it up in an official report.

The bus stoppage was attributed to a sudden onset of bus safety issues, but it was widely assumed throughout the city’s criminal justice system that the union representing correction officers was expressing its anger at the prosecution of the two officers, Kevin Gilkes and Louis Pinto Jr.

That Mr. Peterson was among the inmates delayed would seem to strengthen that interpretation.

Mr. Peterson’s absence raised enough concern that officials from the city Department of Investigation, which conducted the inquiry into Officers Gilkes and Pinto, contacted the city Correction Department to ascertain his whereabouts. Once Mr. Peterson was found, the Investigation Department asked that he be placed in enhanced security, which includes video monitoring, according to people briefed on his custody situation.

The trial of the two officers continued on Tuesday with no further witnesses called, but the judge in the case, George R. Villegas, deliberately kept the courtroom open until Mr. Peterson was finally produced Tuesday afternoon, apparently out of concern for Mr. Peterson.

“I was told the judge did not want to adjourn until he saw the witness,” Steven Reed, a spokesman for the Bronx district attorney’s office, said.

Mr. Peterson was transferred Tuesday evening to the Manhattan Detention Complex, next to State Supreme Court in Lower Manhattan, where he is scheduled for an appearance in an unrelated robbery case on Thursday. It is not standard procedure for the Correction Department to move inmates in before the morning of their court dates.

The next time Mr. Peterson appears in court, it will not be through the usual bus routes handled by correction officers. A person briefed on his situation said there was now an alternative plan to transport him.

Given that the bus problem interfered with Mr. Peterson’s scheduled testimony, the Legal Aid Society is investigating the situation, including an allegation by others that a shutdown may have been orchestrated to interfere with the trial, said Steven Banks, the chief attorney for Legal Aid.

“We are concerned that the Department of Correction has so little ability to maintain its own operations on Rikers Island to the detriment of all our clients who did not have their day in court this week,” Mr. Banks said.

The slowdown in delivering inmates to court continued through Tuesday morning, but appeared to return to normal levels on Wednesday, said David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the state court system. “This obviously had an impact on the hundreds of cases,” he added.

The city’s correction commissioner, Dora B. Schriro, declined to say whether it was under investigation as a possible work action.

Norman Seabrook, the head of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, also declined to comment.

The trial of Officers Gilkes and Pinto was scheduled to conclude this week, but has now been adjourned until Dec. 5 to allow the judge time to decide on a motion filed by prosecutors seeking to limit the nature of questions defense lawyers can ask Mr. Peterson, Mr. Reed said.

Officers Pinot and Gilkes claimed that on Dec. 3, 2011, Mr. Peterson stepped toward Mr. Gilkes in an aggressive manner, resulting in Mr. Gilkes’s defending himself and both officers’ guiding the inmate to the floor. But a security videotape showed Mr. Gilkes slamming Mr. Peterson into a wall and hitting him as Mr. Pinto watched.

Mr. Gilkes faces a misdemeanor assault charge, and both he and Mr. Pinto face charges of official misconduct and filing false records. The top charges they face carry a maximum prison sentence of four years.

Mr. Peterson was arrested on June 1 and charged along with another man in a knife-point robbery in the Rector Street subway station early that morning. He had been convicted of a misdemeanor assault charge in 2012, according to court records.

Jim Dwyer contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A24 of the New York edition with the headline: Bus Stoppage Said to Target Rikers Inmate. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe